What it will take for top 2024 draft picks to deliver on the hype
Caleb Williams, QB, Chicago Bears
Accolades needed: 3x All-Pro, 6x Pro Bowler, MVP, Super Bowl appearance
Williams has been talked about as a top prospect for two straight years. He drew comparisons to Patrick Mahomes throughout the draft cycle. If you are in that category, you need to deliver big time for a long time. Expectations are very high for Williams.
So over the course of his career, what would Williams have to accomplish in order to deliver on that type of hype. It is hard to focus on team success, even though we like to do so for quarterbacks, but Williams has to play in a Super Bowl. Winning it, especially in Chicago, would etch his name into NFL lore forever. Getting there would go a long way to justifying the hype around him.
As far as personal accolades go, Williams will need to ascend to the top of the NFL food chain. Earning All-Pro honors on three different occasions and reaching the Pro Bowl at least six times feel like good benchmarks for Williams.
For reference, quarterbacks named to an All-Pro team three times in their career feature Troy Aikman, Terry Bradshaw, Warren Moon, Jim Kelly and Ken Stabler. That is elite company. Quarterbacks to reach six Pro Bowls include Ben Roethlisberger, Donovan McNabb, Dan Fouts, Roger Staubach and Aikman.
This might seem like a big ask, but if you are the top quarterback selected in a loaded draft class for the position, that's how it goes. Ask John Elway. Winning an MVP at some point in his career also feels like a must for Williams. 22 quarterbacks have won an MVP in their career. Only a handful have won more than one.
It is a quarterback award, especially these days. Williams needs to have that elite season where he is the best player in the league. Even if it is just for one year. Very few can achieve what Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Brett Favre or Tom Brady did, each winning the award at least three times. We have seen Boomer Esiason, Matt Ryan, Brian Sipe and Cam Newton all win the award once.
It is a really tough task. Many great quarterbacks never win it. Dan Fouts, Drew Brees nor Terry Bradshaw ever took home the award. Bradshaw has four rings. Fouts is a Hall of Famer. Brees will be one in a couple years.
This might seem like a high bar for Williams to meet, but that's what we have come to expect from these so-called presidential prospects. I am not putting the hype around Williams into the same category as Andrew Luck, Trevor Lawrence or Peyton Manning, but he is maybe just a half step below that.